


No Man on Earth

by weeesi



Category: 19th Century CE RPF, Lewis and Clark
Genre: Adventure & Romance, American History, F/M, Historical References, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 11:12:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11873145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weeesi/pseuds/weeesi
Summary: If therefore there is anything under those circumstances, in this enterprise, which would induce you to participate with me in it’s fatiegues, it’s dangers and it’s honors, believe me there is no man on earth with whom I should feel equal pleasure in sharing them as yourself.— Meriwether Lewis, in a letter to William Clark, 19 June 1803A story of coming together and falling apart.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first foray into writing any type of historical fiction. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were the American explorers tasked by President Thomas Jefferson to lead the Corps of Discovery expedition across the continent from 1804-1806. [ This article by William Benemann](http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4gv1x0r2) explains the premise for why I’m doing this - basically what made me want to write this story.
> 
>  _No Man on Earth_ focuses on the relationship between Lewis and Clark; it is intended to be a slow-burn love story/character study that incorporates some degree of historical accuracy, though to what degree will be addressed in chapter notes as the story progresses. This is a fanfic; it is not intended to be a work of nonfiction or a primary analysis of the moral/ethical implications of the expedition, although these issues are of course inherently embedded and will appear throughout the story.
> 
> I'm using American spellings. People did not conform to the strict rules of grammar and the OED in the early 19th century; Lewis and Clark were notoriously variable spellers, and any of their writings that I include verbatim will include these delightfully creative misspellings.
> 
> This fic will more than earn its explicit rating by-the-by. Just sayin’.

**Outside the City of Washington, in the Territory of Columbia, 1803**

 

With a tug, it loosens.

For a moment he relishes the sweet-sharp tang of fresh honey that lingers on his tongue, before he spats out the ball of waxy comb. He wipes his hand across his face and squints up at the cloudless sky. Perhaps a hint of salt on the air, he imagines, and he hums

_If I had a beau for a soldier who'd go,_

_Do you think I'd say no? No, no, not I!_

_For a soldier who'd go, do you think I'd say no?_

_No, no, no, no, no, no, not I!_

_When his red coat I saw,_

_Not a sigh would it draw,_

_But I'd give him éclat for his bravery!_

Sweating in the sunlight he rubs down the blade of his knife and guides it back into the leather sheath hung off the belt round his waist. He moves quickly into the shade, into pockets of air under sinewy arms of ancient oaks scattered across the landscape, as he follows a path made not by beast but by men native to this region now long shuttered into the periphery of divine providence. 

Dense underbrush swallows the buzz of insects as he moves through the grove. A dry rock creek bed forms a natural barrier off to his right and he skirts the softly ruffed edge. _Sorghastrum nutans_ , Indian grass. _Juncus effusus_ , soft rush. _Carex crinita_ , long hair sedge. He practices remembering. 

Passed now ages after the inaugural abandonment of God’s good green England, of the stink and squalor of the anonymous cities, the coastal ports filled to spilling over with the sea-hungry rich and poor alike, the endless acreage of blue nothing spread out like a rippling carpet. Twenty-seven years since America threw over her man two years after his birth. Far less than that, a mere two years since a meeting that led to another that led to an appointment for the King of the infant U’ States. 

As he walks he automatically counts the trees and swats at mosquitos that swarm in drunken spirals round his ears.

Pres. Jefferson needed a man to hand, and given the circumstances he was expected to provision it. Another experienced aide-de-camp perhaps would have been more apposite, he had suggested, and Jefferson had countered with the proposal that he move into the Big House. Better for his right hand man to be close, rather preferable to become “a member of my own family,” as Jefferson had appended in the last paragraph of one of his garrulous letters.

 _I have no family_ , he’d wanted to lie.

A sudden rustle in the underbrush interrupts the reverie. Without a sound he moves his hand to palm the butt of his knife. His breath caught, his eyes follow a tussle amongst some berry vines until slips out a petite rabbit the color of baked soil. 

 _Sylvilagus floridanus,_ an eastern cottontail scarcely three pounds, being generous. Nothing to be frightened by. He calms his hand and realizes too late the animal has scurried away before he’s managed to harbor it for his dinner. 

The sun beats at his shoulders whilst he pauses to scribble in his notebook. On a virgin page: a crudely drawn sketch of the rabbit and the type of crimson fruit responsible for staining the hairs at its mouth, his approximate location and time of day of the sighting. He skims through dog-eared pages filled with cramped descriptions of possums and porcupine and squash and spiders and soil and starlight and all for what? To what substantive use could this knowledge be put, so vast and unknowable was the continent on which he has found himself, in that any effort seems stymied by its very smallness? How impossible to capture the essence of discovery on squares of paper blood-stained and wrinkled in the pocket of his hunting breeches. To what purpose—

He tucks away the notebook as he contemplates how challenging it is, on occasion, for equanimity to bless him, whereas his propensity for morose introspection thrives indefatigable. Virtues and vices; o! the menace of an imbalance.

 _I am resolved_ , he thinks, _toward improvement_.

An American born in a British colony to British parents, uneducated until his thirteenth year, endured the American Army through to being made Captain, now employed in the States for the President of the Grand Experiment, gifted in the sciences, botany, and natural history, with a keen interest in the application of medicinal flora, socially stilted and more-often-than-occasionally cruel, brave and impulsive, happier with a hare or mare than a female of the human variety, of taller than average build and exceedingly strong mind and body, he considers himself an excellent candidate for what Jefferson has proposed. He is, however, not wholly above himself to consider its chances of succeeding. His triumph remains to be seen.

*

 

“ _An expedition to explore uncharted lands, being the fundamental aim of such a journey to remain ultimately the discovery and description of a waterway through the heart of our country, not least to further trade through Louisiana and to expedite our claims on the Oregon Territory, of which your maternal brethren are inclined to allege remains within their realm_ ,” _Jefferson had explained to him, at which he had bristled at_ brethren _— were they not all yet markedly British in culture if not name? he could not quite understand the resistance to this dual-identity so many had been quick to abandon — but he’d kept his mouth closed._ “ _I would ask you to lead this adventurous initiative given the unique complement of your military experience and scientific qualifications. You shall be the very man! Choose whomever you wish to support your endeavors, and quickly, for there are endless preparations that require your attention._ ”

Choose whomever you wish _is what had stuck in the space between his ears. Perhaps not to merely to support his endeavors, as he had challenged Jefferson in his study that evening, but rather to share fully in the perils, trials, and accomplishments of these—at which point he’d been interrupted, and received Jefferson’s acquiescence, and the President had agreed he could select twelve men to accompany him on the proposed journey. In addition, he would be granted a man to assist more intimately than typical military protocol would habitually allow._

 _Finally, the President says:_ “ _A man of the ranking no less than Second Lieutenant would be an exceptional choice, yourself as the esteemed Captain, and twelve soldiers or veritable men who are predisposed to behave as such, as well as hired boatmen and working employ. I will follow with a letter to Congress requesting the necessary endowment, but doubtless do not speak a word to anyone save for those you seek to have join you_. _I will require your response at the earliest convenience should you choose to accept or decline the offer._ ” _Jefferson leaves him to take an appointment with a Cabinet member and finally alone in the study he sinks, grateful and overwhelmed, backward into his campeachy chair._

_He thinks._

_He has not formally accepted the task and nevertheless there readily springs to mind a man he would choose, given the chance. A man who conveniently happens to rank second lieutenant, by the by. A man to accompany him blind into the wilderness. A man he wants with a singular type of need. A man he wants._

 

_*_

 

A bird shrieks unseen overhead, which startles him and shakes the mud in his mind. 

“You'll get yourself killed,” he chastises aloud under his breath, through whether to the bird or to himself he feigns no inclination.

 

*

 

**_A Camp outside the US Army Post at Detroit, 1795_ **

 

 _“Tuck yer thomas and tallywags, officer! Hasten ye cover ‘em with yer hand_ _if ‘e jumps—“ Private Johnson sniggers before he’s clocked in the head by Private Franklin. “Oi you?!”_

_“Insufferable bastard! He’s been court-martialed thanks to Lieutenant Elliott, the Federalist scum,” Franklin admonishes, “and the less he needs you to be acting a fool and causing difficulty on his first day in CRC. Now shut up or I’ll pound you half-mourning.”_

_Sobering, Johnson mewls, “Weren’t my fault he was stewed off his head, bursting in when he can’t see a hole in a ladder and challenging Elliott to a duel—”_

_“Is that what you’re spouting against a new sharpshooter, not least a man acquitted with honor!?”_

_“Sharpshooter my ass!”_

_“Enough! Enough, Private Franklin. Private Johnson.” He stamps his feet to dislodge the mud off his boots. Bracing his shoulders, he leaves the two Privates flouncing each other in the yard and pushes aside the canvas flap to the tent wherein his new master is waiting: a young Lieutenant, new commander of the subunit Chosen Rifle Company, a man with a reputation that precedes rumor up and down the Fourth Sublegion._

_The man is sat behind a traveling writing desk, ink-stylus in hand, peering over official correspondence. Dust motes drift in the filtered midday light. The stale odors of sweaty wool and spent tobacco permeate the summer air._

_Forcing patience he waits at attention, hands clasped at the base of his spine, for the other man to invoke his name, require his attention, insult him, spit at his feet. The man does nothing save for eyeing the letter in hand with such disdain that he wonders chiefly if he’s made an error in arriving at the camp. Has there been an administrative change? Is he discharged from service? After an age, he dares clear his throat._

_“Sir.”_

_“A moment,” the man says without looking up, then places the letter down on the desk and selects another._

_He waits for what feels like an age before he can hold his tongue no longer and breaks form. “With deference, sir, I must draw your attention to the fact that I have been awaiting your introduction for what can be measured at several minutes. To treat a member of your company in such a manner suggests a measure of disdain to which I am unaccustomed.”_

_The man meets his eyes for the first time since he entered the tent. Tall, strongly built and broad-shouldered, with cropped auburn hair and an aura of self-assurance, the man rises to his feet behind the desk and lets the letter flutter to its surface. The gold epaulet on the shoulder of his Army jacket catches what little light permeates the tent. The man looks at him disapprovingly, does not offer his hand._

_“Did I permit you to be at ease?” he asks sharply._

_“I—”_

_“I accept you, a damaged entity, a court-martialed ensign, as a transfer to my esteemed company and you regard my behavior with this…overfamiliarity? What do you take me for?!” The Lieutenant slams his hand down onto the desk and lowers his voice, eyes lit. “Is it your ambition to continue your military career? For at this moment you are perilously close to impertinence and a violation that may well end it.”_

_Not one to buckle easily, to his surprise he finds himself duly shamed. His mouth drops open. He closes it, sucks in a breath through his nose, and maintains eye contact. To look at his feet now would prove a further undoing._

_“I offer my apologies, Lieutenant. I have not—it grieves me to see that I have offended you. Poorer judgment could not be matched.”_

_The man pauses before passing around the side of the desk to approach the opening of the tent. Finding it easier to inspect the man at such close proximity, he swallows against the dense air that coats the back of his throat. The man is tall, very tall indeed, trim, and moving close._

_The Lieutenant looks him over before coming nearly chest to chest. A bit shorter, he has to arch his back to reach the other man’s height. “Is that so?”_

_He sets his jaw and steels on. “Your willingness to admit myself into your company shows a great deal of fortitude against the many…tribulations I have caused my prior command. There would be no greater pleasure than proving wrong the many conjectures I assume have travelled before me regarding the quality of my character.” He speaks quickly, dark eyes lit._

_“And how sublime should that come to pass,” the man remarks. “I acknowledge your apology.” Their hands meet in a brisk shake before the Lieutenant tightens the grasp and leans closer. He feels the man’s tobacco-warm breath on his face. “_ Never _speak to me like that again, or I shall have you turned up before you can whitewash the tarnish out of your mouth.” He releases his hand._

_Neither man takes a step backward. A pause, and then—_

_“I should imagine we will get on, Lewis.” The Lieutenant gives him an appraising look. There’s a flicker of levity in his eyes.“I’m partial to a fellow who knows his own mind.”_

_He waits without speaking. Realizing the silence is expectant, he nods in return and finds his voice._

_“I beg you to believe me when I say, I am inclined to believe you, Lieutenant Clark.”_

Marked a first-rank fool _, he thinks, but Clark grins like clouds parting. As he leaves the tent, Lewis detects its mirror on his own face, unbidden, as natural as breathing._

 

_*_

 

_Later that evening, Lewis watches the men trot around the camp fire in dizzying loops, the night spent practicing improvised maneuvers more inclined for hand-to-hand combat than anything resembling skilled use of their Army-issued weaponry. He moves to the furthest edge of the circle and lifts his pipe to the thin bow of his mouth, which parts in preparation, and doing so catches Lt. Clark’s eyes following him across the smoky haze of the camp._

_He pauses._

_“I recall you’ve a similar expertise?” Clark calls out to him, voice husky with the dampness of his own pipe, before he moves closer to avoid being pummeled into head-long by Private Tussock wrestling away from Private McArthur._

_“Lieutenant Clark, sir. You’ve a swift foresight to avoid that collision,” Lewis remarks, ignoring Clark’s comment, heart quickening._ Damn but if he expects some sort of demonstration of my training—

_“I’ve had worse,” Clark blows a thin jet of smoke over Lewis’ shoulder. His eyes are friendly. “And, I endeavor to suspect, so have you.”_

_They smoke in silence for a few minutes watching the men wrangle in and out of each others’ arms. Above the melee gossamer clouds stretch across a tinpan-colored sky._

_Lewis, feeling increasingly awkward, casts about for conversation. “I understood that your preference is to regard strict military protocol at every moment, and yet you allow for such physical engagement in your company?”_

_“I welcome it. Nothing is better suited to sorting out grievances between men of equal rank than some standard scuffling, Lewis.” Clark sucks at the mouth of his pipe. The burning tobacco glows like an amber firebug as he breathes deeply, then exhales. “You seem a roughhouser,” he smirks, kindly, and says plainly, “I presume, given your reputation for fisticuffs when drinking, that you have no displeasure at placing your hands on a man.”_

_Lewis’ face flushes hot. He starts, sputters. “Whatever you mean—I—surely you misunderstand—“_

_“Fulsom reported you blackened his eye after the march a fortnight ago.”_

_He wills his heart to calm and forces the mimic of a chuckle. “Ah. Indeed. An excess of whisky and ill-worn bravado, I’m afraid.”_

_“Nothing to be afraid of, Lewis.” Clark laughs. He removes the pipe from his lips and tilts his chin to the sky as he speaks, releasing puffs of smoke as a punctuation on his words. “To what god does fear serve?”_

_In the near darkness Lewis watches the muscles of Clark’s throat move. “Reverence,” he murmurs. He stands with his commander at the fireside, minding the men throwing each others’ shadows._

 

_*_

 

At the edge of the grove of grizzled oaks, Lewis sees the faint outline of the Big House slightly obscured behind the growing haze of late afternoon. Fires in the western fields, as Messr. Brisbois had warned him of their likelihood the morning before last, and the air turns heavy and close as the sun sets. Best to leave off hunting after tea time. He again hums the melody and resolves to draft his acceptance letter for Jefferson. 

_When my soldier was gone, do you think I'd take on,_

_Or sit moping forlorn? No, no, not I!_

_Do you think I'd take on, or sit moping forlorn?_

_No, no, no, no, no, no, not I!_

_His fame my concern,_

_How my bosom would burn,_

_When I saw him return crown'd with victory!_

Lewis is obliged to draft another letter this evening. The palms of his hands sweat with the thought. He sucks at his tongue, on the fading taste of honey in his mouth.

 

*

 

He scratches across the page words that make his hand shake. 

_From the long and uninterrupted_

He pauses.

 _friendship_  

“Capt’n Loowis?” A distinctive knock at the door precedes the question. He is sat silent in his bare-boned bachelor’s study, a single beeswax candle the only light, and its glow hidden behind the bend of his body curled over his writing desk. Windows closed and drawn, barely a rug on the floor, the cooling summer nighttime already chilling the tip of his nose, and he’s run-through with a nervy, keen feeling. Anxious for solace and eager to put to paper the lines he’s been minding all day.

He ignores the attempted intrusion and writes another phrase.

_and confidence which has subsisted between us_

_I feel no_

What? What has he not felt regarding his friend—

_hesitation_

_in making to you the following communication under the fulest impression that it will be held by you inviolably secret_

_until I see you,_

Until I see you, dearest C—

_or you shall hear again from me._

Another, more forceful knock, another calling of his name that spikes an irritable tremor in his blood. 

Lewis holds his breath, ensures the light from the candle is well concealed, and waits for the familiar steps to retreat from the other side of the door before proceeding. Re-reads.

_From the long and uninterrupted friendship and confidence which has subsisted between us I feel no hesitation in making to you the following communication under the fulest impression that it will be held by you inviolably secret until I see you, or you shall hear again from me._

He apprises Clark an outline of the essentials: the creation of the Corps, the intentions for the expedition, the wishes of the honorable Pres. Jefferson, the underwriting support of the US government, the small measures of deception to entice and ensure the requirement of soldiers, of young, healthy, unmarried men 

_capable of bearing bodily fatigue in a pretty considerable degree_

and resolutely enduring physical trials and tribulations for the better part of 18 months, and finally the request, the requirement, above all else, for…for…

He puts off the words for yet, and instead continues.

_should nothing take place to defeat my progress altogether I feel confident that my passage to the Western Ocean should be effected by the end of next Summer or the begining of Autumn._

The house has once again gone quiet. Pesky Brisbois. Likely wanting a recounting of the day’s hunting, or a spare pot of grease, or an analysis of the weather patterns such as Lewis could manage to the precise moment of when the regretful dust and ash would fall from the sky and the air could clear and the late summer could commence without the necessity of rubbing incessant grit from every surface. Brisbois, far from France and perhaps wanting a friend, finds a closed door where Lewis is concerned. 

Lewis already has a friend.

He returns to the letter.

_but here let me again impress you with the necessity of keeping this matter a perfect secret —_

Secret. Has he selected the most suitable word? 

He knows he can trust Clark’s discretion on the subject. On many subjects. He lets his wrist rest against the edge of the desk, stylus poised, and leans back into his chair.

The two men last met in 1796. For seven years he has had nothing from Clark, not even barely a handful of letters from the family estate in Virginia, letters to which he would have eagerly returned his own packed with compliments and assurances. Six months of comradeship that saw the frozen winter of ’95 melt into the sodding wet New Year, and Lewis had his Lieutenant Clark close to hand at every turn. The men got on, get on, unequal as they are in rank, as unalike as they are in countenance, and as unusual for a commanding officer and his man-at-arms to be what they became — what they have become — yet rapport beyond standard military friendship flourishes between them and then: a transfer, a hasty goodbye. Lewis had served through to 1801, alone.

Clark had said— _my dear fellow_ —and Lewis—

It has been nearer a decade than most other absences in Lewis’ life. 

Apparitions.

Since…there had been Dickerson, yes. 

Is that a further sound beyond his door? Breath caught in his throat he pushes up from the desk and listens with a hunter’s sharpened senses. His shadow a sharp silhouette thrown on the wall, he is careful to avoid creaking the joints of the timeworn secretaire. Nothing. Perhaps a deer mouse.

 _Peromyscus maniculatus_. Eyes as black as the ink in the well.

Back to the task at hand. He sits and writes.

Lewis suggests the promised provisions, the purpose of the endeavor, the responsibility of military leadership. The categorical benefits to science, to further examining the customs of the tribes of people living in these unknown territories, to the promise of economic prosperity for their homeland, the new country of the U’ States.

Then. Now. He must write it.

_If therefore there is anything under those circumstances, in this enterprise, which would induce you to participate with me in it’s fatiegues, it’s dangers and it’s honors, believe me there is_

He hesitates not a moment.

_no man on earth_

_with whom I should feel equal pleasure in sharing them as yourself._

He promises the President has promised to ensure Clark is made a Captain.

He cannot stop himself.

_your situation if joined with me in this mission will in all respects be precisely such as my own._

He cannot stop himself.

_Should you feel disposed not to attach yourself to this party in an official character, and at the same time feel a disposition to_

to

to what?

_to accompany me as a friend_

_any part of the way up the Missouri_

_I should be extremely happy in your company,_

_and will furnish you with every aid for your return from any point you might wish it._

_With sincere and affectionate regard_

_Your friend_

_&  _

And. And? Presumptuous. But then at least, your—

_Humble Sevt._

_Meriwether Lewis_

Taking a moment, he rubs a thumb over the corner of the parchment and suffers the sentiment on the page like a claw through his ribs. 

He leaves every word. 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) The tune Lewis hums is called “The Dashing White Sergeant,” a Scottish reel that incidentally became wildly popular in America. The lyrics were written by General John Burgoyne, who was the British commander at Saratoga. Sir Henry Rowley Bishop set the words to music in 1826, so Lewis is humming his own melody here, I guess.
> 
> 2) I love historical slang and would imagine Army lads would’ve indulged quite liberally.  
> Thomas: penis  
> Tallywags: testicles  
> Pound: beat up  
> Half-mourning: to have a black eye from a blow  
> Stewed: drunk  
> Can’t see a hole in a ladder: intoxicated, drunk  
> Turned up: discharged  
> Basically how many ways can you say he got utterly pissed. 
> 
> 3) Clark commanded Lewis in the Chosen Rifle Company for a period of about six months. It’s also true that Lewis had been court-martialed after getting drunk and challenging a lieutenant to a duel.
> 
> 4) Lewis worked as Jefferson’s aide, then private secretary beginning in 1801 and lived in the Big House (the White House) with him until shortly before he left on the expedition. 
> 
> 5) Campeche or “Campeachy" or x-frame chairs were popular in early America, probably because they were so darn comfy. Jefferson reportedly called them “siesta chairs,” and had his enslaved woodworker John Hemmings build some for him. And today you can buy one from the Monticello Foundation for just under $2000!
> 
> 6) The French name “Brisbois” means someone who cleared land, from briser "to cut" and bois “forest”. Couldn’t resist. Also there’s no evidence that a French treecutter was ever on the White House payroll.
> 
> 7) Mahlon Dickerson met Lewis at a dinner hosted by President Jefferson at the White House in April 1802 and the two men apparently became close friends. Long-time friends who “dined together many times.” You know, friends of the euphemism variety.
> 
> 8) As Lewis is writing, everything in italics is taken verbatim from the original letter of invitation that he wrote to Clark on the 19th of June in 1803. [ Here is a link](http://www.usd116.org/profdev/ahtc/lessons/WaggonerMillsFel10/WaggonerMillsFel10resources.htm) to copies of each page of the letter (plus a lot of other goodies).


	2. Chapter 2

Why must it take the old man an honest age to procure for him two hatchets, one corn mill, three dozen pint tumblers, thirty-two canisters of powdered soup, and one hundred and twenty-five large fishing hooks? Lewis leans against the shop’s shiplap wall, a shoulder to the boards and an ear to the bustling out back, waiting impatiently for the shopkeeper to draw up his receipt, one of many that will be stuffed amongst the others in his modest accounts book. His list has grown. Tents, medicines, surgical equipment, Castile soaps, blankets, boots, gun slings, powder horns, brass kettles, files, pistols, shot-pouches, wires, brushes, boxes, wine, flannel shirts, stockings, shoes, magnets, boat compasses, pocket compasses, pocket telescopes, quills, sealing wax, butcher knives, sextants, lockets, beads, small bells, silk ribbons, needles, knitting pins, scissors, iron combs, curtain rings, thimbles. 

Five hundred broaches, to gift to the indigenous people they will undoubtedly encounter and need to charm in order to sustain their access to horses, shelter, food.

Weight: one and one half pounds. Price: sixty-two dollars and seven cents. 

Shuffling footsteps announce the old man’s arrival, receipt in hand.

“Any further requests or additions, Captain Lewis?” 

“Nothing I could not add at a later date, I imagine.” He’d only meant to spend fifty on the broaches.

“Later date?” Mr. Jacobs quirks a white wiry eyebrow skyward. “I say with all due respect, young man, you’ve best make your decisions whilst the weather is warming and you’ve got Messer Jefferson in his good graces.”

“Or rather, yours,” Lewis holds out a hand for the paper, glances at the handwritten tally neatly marked near the bottom. “On behalf of the President, as his representative of the American government in this most ambitious endeavor, Mr. Jacobs, I thank you for your contributions.” The men shake on it as they should, and Lewis catches his tongue between his teeth.

_More like the American government’s contribution to your pockets._

“Robert will assist with packing your carts.” Mr. Jacobs releases his hand and reaches for the remnant of a handkerchief stuffed in his waistcoat as he blithers on about the various dimensions of each and every parcel and package. He pauses, damp kerchief at his nose, an intrepid finger wrestling inside an ancient nostril. “You have brought along more than one cart, I take it?”

Lewis fights the urge to raise his hand again.

He thinks over his instructions as he watches young Robert pack five hundred broaches destined for the wilderness.

_Your situation as Secretary of the President of the US. has made you acquainted with the objects of my confidential message of Jan. 18. 1803 to the legislature; you have seen the act they passed, which they expressed in general terms, was meant to sanction these objects, and you are appointed to carry them into execution._

 

_*_

 

A delay, perhaps.

Why does Clark loiter?

Does he loathe the invitation?

Or laugh?

The unknown makes Lewis deliriously anxious. He’d sent his request on the 19th of June, and nearly now a month has passed since he’d managed to catch the post boy on his morning route and gracelessly shove his heart’s transcription into two ignorant hands. 

Clark does not write, and Lewis wonders. 

 

*

 

He throws himself into the necessary preparations. He meets with Jefferson’s men: doctors, naturalists, astronomers, herbalists, mathematicians, philosophers, historians, scholars, men of science, of medicine, of every propriety. He takes careful notes and listens to lectures and opposing diatribes on every conceivable subject, practices harvesting food from the earth and the earth from the worn-out soles of his hunting boots after long walks with his mentors. He sleeps restlessly, and makes lists, and waits for Clark to write.

Jefferson prods him to align a second option, in case.

Moses Hooks. 

Lewis admires the man, for in whatever way he pales in comparison, Hooks wouldn’t be a poor substitute for required military experience and cool-headed bravery in the face of  near guaranteed peril. He writes the letter: _Lt. Hooks, a proposition in lieu of Wm. Clark being unable or…_

_unwilling?_

He continues with his studies and stockpiles every scientific instrument readily available to gentlemen of a certain standing in the U’States. He fancies a French telescope and considers filing the request on a day when Jefferson is away at Congress, but hesitates once the weight of the beast is confirmed by its manufacturer. One and one half pounds worth of just broaches, remember. His back aches, his head aches, his heart aches.

Lewis travels from Washington City to Pittsburgh. He meets with dignitaries, he writes vaguely truthful letters to his aging mother, he dines and dances with women, presumably, though he cannot remember a single name or pretty face the morning after the revelries. Perhaps they had not been revelries. Perhaps they had not been pretty. 

Perhaps it does not matter.

He interviews men, mostly unmarried soldiers as he’d wished, and feigns the real design of the mission until justifiably the prospective men question his motives. Lewis could not require a commitment without telling the truth, he finds, and is morally rewarded with the rapid consignment of seven privates. In the meantime he has assigned to some boat-builders the commission of such a vessel, and waits, and waits, and waits for its final design, already late for its late summer deadline. Bloody awful wonderful things, boats, and Lewis knows that he must be patient with those boatmen, those bastards. Nothing inspires more ardent labor than a bribe, and even this falls flat. 

The days pass, and Hooks accepts, as the weight of Clark’s response remains in absentia. 

 _My dear fellow_ —Lewis remembers over a nip of rye whisky, one evening late and lonely—Clark had said _my dear fellow_ and then—

The 21st of July brings a cloudless sky and hot sun. The 24th brings misting rain. The 27th draws a rainbow that stretches from one edge of the city to the other, and Lewis harasses the innkeeper’s servant tasked with bringing up his post for failing to relieve his agony. The 30th delivers a mournful downpour. That night he rocks his hips into the mattress, ashamed of his desperation.

Red hair in his fists, a memory unlived, a memory of self-pity.

He dines with Mahlon Dickerson: a poorly loved substitute.

The 1st of August brings dreadful heat and another man agrees to risk his life for Pres. Jefferson’s ambition. Now the number of required soldiers has been raised to thirty from the original twelve, given Lewis’ angling, and interest in the project churns through the rumor mills, seems to grow. Between yes’ing and no’ing to shopkeepers, total numbers echo in his head in every spare moment: total recruited men, eight; total canisters of powdered soup, thirty-two; total number of broaches, five hundred; total letters from William Clark, zero.

He needs more men, less soup, the same amount of broaches, and a blasted letter from—

The 3rd of August in Pittsburgh.

Blessed day!

Lewis wakes early, sweating already in his underclothes, and bathes his face and body before taking his breakfast within the confines of his room. A knock at the door interrupts the boiled quail egg from reaching his lips. 

The servant. 

The nameless innkeeper’s servant with that morning’s post.

Bless this day! Clark’s handwriting, the seal, it must be his—it has to be—Lewis snatches it like a schoolboy out of the boy’s hand, scolds him for lingering. He tears it nearly apart, he fears, though in reality the seal slips neatly—

“Another, sir. Mister Lewis.”

“Captain.” He corrects, heart racing, and sees the second letter tucked between the boy’s long thin fingers. A talisman. “Leave me,” he manages before shooing him away. 

Not one, but two! 

One dated the 18th of July, the other on the 24th. 

Twice! 

The good man had written twice in the span of a week! 

Lewis begins reading the letter of the 18th. 

_Dear Lewis_

_I received by yesterdays Mail, your letter of the 19th…The Contents of which I recived with much pleasure—The enterprise &a. is Such as I have long anticipated and am much pleased With—_

I received by yesterdays Mail, your letter of the 19th.

Surely—by _yesterday_ —meaning Clark had not received Lewis’ invitation until likely the 16th of July. First dated the 17th, then altered, as he’d changed the date to the 18th, which confirms he’d written— _immediately_ —he’d written _immediately_ —so then Clark had picked up his pen on the first inclination.

The words flood his eyes in a rush.

_and as my Situation in life will admit of my absence the length of time necessary to accomplish Such an undertakeing I will chearfully join you_

Praise God!

_in an ‘official Charrector’ as mentioned in your letter, and partake of the dangers, difficulties, and fatigues, and I anticipate the honors & rewards of the result of Such an enterprise, Should we be successful in accomplishing it. _

_We_ , he writes. You and me, myself and yourself. 

We.

_This is an under takeing fraited with many difeculties, but My friend I do assure you that no man lives Whith Whome I would perfur to under take Such a Trip &c. as your Self, and I shall arrange My Matters as well as I can against your Arrival here._

A trip, an undertaking freighted with many difficulties.

Lewis had written: there is no man on earth with whom I should feel equal pleasure in sharing them as yourself.

Clark responds: no man lives with whom I would prefer to undertake such a trip as yourself.

The letter continues, which Lewis scans and re-reads and forces his hands still to re-read again. It finishes and he reads it again.

_Pray write to me by every post after recving this letter, I shall be exceedingly anxious to here from you._

_With every sincerity & frendship_

_Wm. Clark_

 

Good Christ! How this misunderstanding has blossomed: a delay in the post nearly ruins every chance of deliverance! Clark waiting as Lewis has waited! Fate is cruel and kind!

The forgotten quail egg bounces into the dusty floor. He scrambles to the room’s well-worn desk to dash off a response, this time half-delirious with delight, his anxiety quelled at the knowledge of Clark’s, and barely remembers to read the letter of the 24th. 

_Mother of God! Her own foolish son, Meriwether._

What had he imagined? For it is just as he’d hoped.

Jefferson must be told at once, then—what was his name—the substitute Lieutenant—Hooks—

He reads the other letter.

Clark is arranging his affairs, putting matters in order so as to be ready at first cause, he has engaged a few gentlemen’s sons (which is surely an error, these men have never held a gun with a purpose other than to impress a flushing lady, and Lewis knows he must see to it they do not hire a load of fair-weather cock robins who wither at making water out of doors). Clark writes he wants to hear from Lewis “as often as possible” and Lewis must not fail to oblige him.

Clark has signed it “Yr. W.C.”

Lewis presses his thumb to the very spot.

He reaches for his inkwell and stylus and writes first to Hooks, aiming for apologetic and likely missing by several strokes. He nearly scribbles out his signature in his haste to move on to Jefferson, where he confirms Clark’s acceptance with acknowledgment of the prior letter sent under cover to the President.

_Now then. Think well._

He finds his hand is calm, his eyes clear, his heart thudding steady on in his chest. He draws in ink and places tip to paper.

_Dear_

_Clark_

He acknowledges Clark’s acceptance, cordial, but there is more to say.

_I could neither hope, wish, or expect from a union with any man on earth, more perfect support_

No man. Any man. 

This man. Him.

You, my dear fellow.

_... than that, which I am confident I shall derive from being associated with yourself._

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) All that stuff? Yeah, that’s really some of the stuff Lewis gathered for the expedition. See the final note on Chapter One for a link to the transcribed shopping list.
> 
> 2) Jefferson’s instructions to Lewis [can be found here.](https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/lewisandclark/transcript57.html)
> 
> 3) As mentioned in the prior chapter, Mahlon Dickerson was one of Lewis’ close friends. Supposedly they spent every night together when in the same city, though I don’t know if that is really verifiable in any way.
> 
> 4) Clark’s response to Lewis [can be found here.](https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-41-02-0074-0002) See the note at the bottom of the webpage about how Clark wrote Lewis twice and Lewis got both letters on 3 August in Pittsburgh.
> 
> 5) Cock robin = slang for a soft, easy fellow. Making water = having a wee.
> 
> 6) Wanna read the back and forth correspondence? [ Check out](https://books.google.com/books?id=hX2XxrFrMdEC&pg=PA696&lpg=PA696&dq=%22I+could+neither+hope,+wish,+or+expect+from+a+union+with+any+man+on+earth%22&source=bl&ots=KJp4vW4jc1&sig=HoW8noQhpYv7kEB9wi7JLcXBqZ4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiL5di89ILWAhUC9WMKHXGiACwQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=%22I%20could%20neither%20hope%2C%20wish%2C%20or%20expect%20from%20a%20union%20with%20any%20man%20on%20earth%22&f=false) “Newly Discovered Personal Records of Lewis and Clark” by Reuben Gold Thwaites in Scribner’s Magazine, Volume 35. The article strangely claims Clark won a captaincy under General Wayne, which is patently untrue, as Clark was never made a captain, ever. It does include this wonderful little bit:
> 
> "There is certainly nowhere obtainable a more charming picture of man's love for man, than is revealed both in the affectionate letters between Lewis and Clark...[...]... we find the two friends true to the end: no where is there evident a single note of discord, and not infrequently do they exhibit in their diaries a mutual attachment of that tender sort seldom seen among men."
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

_The willow tree sways, or he does, and then his cheek is cold and damp._

_“Lewis?”_

_Bellows in his lungs, his belly a river. Sodden hot guts. He’s face down. Muddy._

_“Fancy another drink?”_

_“Hush, he’s done.”_

_“I’ll tell you what he’s done: heavy wet, taplash. Three threads. What else. Rye—“_

_“You’ve missed the door, haven’t y—“_

_“Want another taste?”_

_He groans, and vomits, and after a moment feels his head fall back, away from the stinking stream of sick and up from the mud. Fresh air, or something like a breeze on his face. Tobacco and sweat and a man’s voice, close, and the clinging stench of alcohol._

_“Take him under the arm.”_

_The other voices linger. He endeavors to open his eyes but the world’s a kaleidoscope and he feels the long fingers of the willow tree reach into the back of his throat, wrap around him, gagging him, choking, forcing putrid bile—he vomits again._

_“Nash, do as I say.” The voice. Tobacco-sweat-man. “There, help me to set him onto my cot.”_

_His feet drag along behind senseless as stones. His body — rotten, ruined thing — spares him the requirement of conscious effort; instead he depends solely on the efforts of unseen creatures, and he lets his head loll between bent shoulders, useless._

_“Lewis, set still, please.”_

_Please, tobacco-sweat-man says, like he’s a child in the nursery and nanny’s gone right out of patience._

_“Please,” he returns, or imagines the word._

_The next morning upon waking, he feels his head has been stuck in two by a slender, merciless axe, and aims to cease all movement for the remainder of his life. Alcohol poisoning, or nearly, as he’s incapable of satiety again. Stupid boy, a fatherless son. By touch alone discovers he’s left a stream of sick down the front of his reeking Army-issued cotton undershirt, and that his ambition to rid himself of its horrors will only be met with a certain type of racking nausea. He quiets himself and becomes still. Perhaps the smell will further induce self-loathing and hasten his remorse. A younger man than he is ten times wiser. Fatherless son, a stupid boy. He opens his eyes and studies the splatter._

_“Ought to find someone to get that out,” Clark gestures with the bowl of his pipe, eyes dark as he smokes in the corner of his tent, watching Lewis. “Quite unbecoming.”_

_Clark is four years older than Lewis and does not drink himself away under willow trees._

 

_*_

 

The problem with becoming an Army Captain is precisely that everyone hastens to hang on your every command, and doubly hastens to ignore it. Lewis had written to the War Department requesting Clark’s commission nearly the moment he’d set pen to paper for the invitation itself, yet he hears nothing. He wants to be equals with Clark, now that his friend has accepted. He finds himself needing that equivalency as surely as he needs the ampersand betwixt their surnames. Captain Lewis and Second Lieutenant Clark doesn’t shine off the teeth, quite, does it. Two Captains he wants, and two he is determined for, regardless of what military custom allows. A man and his friend are equals. 

Determined to set off before the end of August, he harangues the boatmen and finally a vehicle that looks more like a custom-built keelboat than not is delivered to him. Now with hardly time to spare, he works through each day to completion. Munitions works in Harpers Ferry Arsenal send up the requested rifles, pistols &c, that he must use well and wisely if he is to frighten some and impress others. He writes to Clark, discusses figures and conjectures and remembers to ask after the brothers and a matronly (or maidenly?) sister (or aunt?) and Clark carefully, delicately, inquires after the matter. No matter at all, Lewis says, the commission will come through.

It doesn’t.

Clark is to be a lifetime lieutenant in the eyes of the government.

Nonsense. Clark is to have the captaincy he deserves in the eyes of Lewis, in nothing but name only, if it comes to that. Lewis writes to him (another letter! yet another! how extraordinary to one day merely say his name aloud and witness the turn of that red-haired head!) and now they agree that none of the recruited men shall know, that Clark shall be called Captain and no queries as to the associated commission shall be tolerated. 

That’s that.

The day after next post-breakfast he spots a large Newfoundland lounging around the back of a trader’s post, long pink tongue sagging out of loose lips dropped into the dust as the dog pants in the sunshine. Lewis pats it on the head and is rewarded with a slop of a kiss. He pays $20 — an obscene immodesty! what is the price of a companion — and the dog follows him back to the inn without a moment’s hesitation. Seaman, he calls it. 

Another week passes of letters and dinners and lectures and directions and lists and then finally, finally, _finally,_ Lewis finishes the last preparations and the damned keelboat is ready.

Young Lewis, thy name is Destiny!

He alerts the men. Eleven he has now, seven of which are proven soldiers, and Clark has promised to deliver more recruits once they meet (bless the day) somewhere downstream on the Ohio River. They come to meet him together as he calls for them: Collins, Weiser, Thompson, Frazer, Hall, McNeal, Howard, Goodrich, Werner, Willard, and Potts. Military order must be observed first, rapport-building acquiesced to second. Late summer thunderstorms rage in the heavens as Lewis guides the soldiers through the maps displayed across tables in the inn’s meeting hall, his voice occasionally drowned out by a particularly loud clap. 

“Say again, sir?” One of them asks. McNeal. “Only that we were unable to hear your last comment due to the pernicious weather.”

Lewis hates to repeat himself. “I say, we are due for departure down the Ohio River on the 31st of August.”

“Two days from tomorrow.” Potts.

“Three days from today, Potts.” Thompson. 

 _What a bunch of —robust examples of sparkling intellect._ Lewis decides to halt judgment until the expedition is underway, hostility granting a true vision of the ineptitude of the chosen travelers. Beggars can’t be choosers, and as much as Lewis deigns to think himself a beggar, he acknowledges not many would offer as these men have done without some skillful maneuvering on his part.

“Captain Lewis,” Frazer asks, “at what venture do we make the acquaintance of Clark?”

“We will meet _Captain_ Clark at a _juncture_ ,“ Lewis fights to keep down the pressures in his veins, “—of the river somewhere south of here—“

And in actuality, does it matter?

Clark is not with them now, bothered by some personal business closer to home, and unable to meet until the voyage has quite begun, a detail which picks at Lewis’ psyche. No matter. He will come. 

The men fall into a kind of natural order; they discuss their open ambitions for the adventure, one voice clamoring over another to be heard after Lewis dismisses them with strict orders to meet at 0800 hours on the shores of the Ohio on the 31st, two days after tomorrow, three days after today.

 

*

 

_That night, newly-clean-shirted and newly-washed Lewis feels more or less improved, and he and Clark sit with their hats off, smoking, stretched up against the edge of the ridge dotted with pine trees behind their camp. Lewis spots an owl darting between branches, surely with a dead mouse hanging, looking for the owlets tucked away in the mother’s nest. The sky looks draped with muslin, stars barely pinpricks peeking. Clark sighs and kicks at his hat._

_“Bugger all left in my pipe, Lewis. Any to spare?”_

_Lewis reaches for the small pouch tightly tied and hidden in the pocket of his discarded Army jacket, and casually tosses it, unsighted, to Clark. It lands square between his thighs. Clark snorts with surprise._

_“Is that how you present your commanding officer with additional resources?”_

_He tries not to laugh. He doesn’t manage, for once, to laugh second._

_They quiet down again, Clark smoking steadily, and Lewis holding off the urge to steal back the pouch. He is forced to wonder why Clark would mind him all evening, sit with him, smoke with him, when there’s a million other things he might be—_

_“I do…regret my earlier conduct, sir.” Lewis begins, awkwardly formal, his voice shattering the comfortable silence that had settled between them. “It was most unbecoming.”_

_For the first time since the tobacco toss, Clark turns and stares at him, eye to eye. “You would do well to indulge a bit less, Lewis,” he says, gently, “or at least starve your demons.”_

_Lewis does not know what to say to that._

 

_*_

 

The custom-built keelboat groans under the weight of men and freight, an unwelcome symptom Lewis shoves into the back of his brain. Too many things to consider, not least if all required bodies and supplies are aboard. The sun is barely raised to mid-sky and the day already feels hot. A small crowd has assembled to see them off, mostly ladies and government types too unimportant to be doing anything else, and Lewis makes a succinctly vague speech about the virtue of discovery that he hopes no one will remember well enough to have printed verbatim in the next issue of the weekly. Three of the privates bustle about, readying river poles, preparing navigational equipment, inquiring after this or the other that Lewis managed to forget, and it strikes him that somehow he feels remarkably calm. Goodbye, Pittsburgh, he salutes the months of waiting, the nights filled with the sharp-edge of loneliness. He is on his way to Louisville.

But first, regretfully: sand.

Blasted, dreadful stuff! The late summer river is so shallow that the men must disembark and push-pull-drag-tear at the boat to fight through sandbars, islands of sand stuck up above the discouragingly low water line. Forced to tow the boat from shore, a lone canoe and the pirogue float their best behind, and Lewis makes it to Wheeling after a week. Added supplies and another pirogue, off again as quickly as possible, fighting for every boat length, Maysville by the 23rd of September. The damned river! But for all the struggle, Lewis can’t help and feel secretly pleased for it, for the sanctification of his endurance; trials and tribulations now…trials and tribulations surely later. No matter, he tells himself again, no matter. 

He writes dutifully in the journal until the 18th, then finds he cannot manage it.

A dark mood seeps around his boundaries.

The keelboat does not meet the shores of Cincinnati until the 28th. 

He writes to Clark that day, feigns optimism, and tells him to expect them no later than the first week of October, as one may imagine floating downstream has turned rather tenuous given the inadequate levels of water in the river, their headway thus subsequently delayed. Clark is waiting for him and Lewis is failing, alone on the first leg.

His dark mood deepens, a private burden.

October the first passes, as does the entire week, and they are barely progressed. Morale wavers. The promise of a wild adventure, and the reality a six-week slog through three feet of water?  Lewis, the staunch, ever fearless public leader, cheers the men’s efforts and ensures every inch is met with equal determination of his own. They talk of what is to come, they dine on watermelon and squirrel, they have nights beneath the stars and rub at the muscles that ache. And every night _Clark, Clark, Clark_ beats at the edge of Lewis’ dreams with the rhythm of the poles hitting the sandy bottom of the river.

The morning of the 14th of October he wakes early, shovels in a mindless breakfast, and shouts his orders to the privates manning the pirogues. Today is the day. They must reach the port at Louisville, or _by God_ … He takes his position on the keelboat and encourages fortitude to rest in his brain and his bowels.

They struggle for several hours, valiantly as expected, until Lewis sees a mass of people lining the Ohio’s shores. 

The rooftops of buildings around the bend of the river.

The edge of the dock at the landing. 

A group of men huddled off to one side, shouting. Shouting! Arms in the air! Shouting!

Until.

Until Lewis sees a red-haired head.

_Nearer a decade…_

His pulse in his throat, he calls to him, heart-wild, cries like a boy from his homemade boat, “My friend! My friend!” He shouts his voice hoarse, he imagines, forget decorum. Clark is there…just… _there_ …and—

—the boat is nearly docked, the two pirogues tucked into sandy shoals, his men skipping off the water like stones, scrambling for the landing, hungry for Louisville land—ladies cheering—swept up—in colors—

Lewis blinks. Clark was here…just… _here_ …and—the crowd consumes him—

“Let us meet your men!”

“Good Captain, victorious on the Ohio!”

He’s passed through the masses, hand to hand, face to face, a blur, overwhelming—

“A fine gaggle of recruits, sir!”

“Captain Lewis, bless which way Westward he wanders!”

—a pat, a touch on his shoulder—

—until a firmer grasp, with a familiar hand. 

“Good God! Finally!” in a voice Lewis knows, would know anywhere, would know on the moment beyond the moment of his death.

And suddenly he is there before him, the man himself, as if manifested from a dream. Open and fair features, strong, tall, self-assured. A bit weathered and wiser. Red hair like fired honey in the sunshine.

“My dear Clark!” Lewis says, as they join hands. Clark’s eyes are clear and bright, the color of still seawater, and his palm warms Lewis’ shoulder. “Hello old friend.”

“Welcome to Louisville, Captain Lewis,” Clark grins. “Old friend.”

 _At last_ , Lewis thinks, _at last we can begin_.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Once again I couldn't resist some good ol' slang:
> 
> Heavy wet = malt liquor  
> Taplash = thick, bad-tasting beer  
> Three threads = mixture of half-common ale and stale with double beer
> 
> Plus rye implies rye whisky. Ugh, just thinking about the combination of these gives me a stomachache.
> 
> Check out more cool 18th-19th century slang on [one](http://www.artofmanliness.com/2010/03/10/manly-slang-from-the-19th-century/) or [two](https://www.geriwalton.com/slang-euphemisms-and-terms-letter-t/) of these websites.
> 
> 2) I don't actually know which of the Corps men would have been in Pittsburgh for the initial journey down the Ohio to Louisville nor do I know if Lewis called them all together before they left on the 31st, but I would assume? maybe? this happened? so if you know otherwise please let me know. I just avoided naming the men that Clark recruited. It's the best I could manage. 
> 
> 3) In case you like to follow along, we are [at the midpoint here](http://www.lewisandclarkinkentucky.org/places/ohio_river_journey.shtml) on the timeline... but if you read ahead, beware the 200+ year old spoilers.


	4. Chapter 4

**_Louisville, 14 October 1803_ **

 

Formidable, it is at first. 

What could be possible to articulate after years apart?

Clark, at the landing.

Clark, near the battered edge of the keelboat, at the edge of Lewis’ elbow. Clark, a figment of cherished memory: there! here! 

“Go on, then,” expectant eyes. 

Blasted heart! Lewis fumbles for words.

“Quite as I was saying—”

They are yet standing still as they met, partitioned slightly away from the hoards of frilly dresses and clambering frontiersmen eager for a closer look at the custom boat. The sun dips behind clouds as a rowdy child attempts to climb aboard a canoe, stopped in time by someone (indefatigable mother), and a thunderhead forms to the west and the breeze picks up and Seaman barks, squarely forgotten, tied to the wooden mast of the keelboat, and a jostle behind (men being men, words exchanged) and a woman with blue ribbons tied at the end of the plaits in her up-do eyes him with not less than keen interest, and Lewis himself: Lewis sees and hears and remembers and recognizes nothing of any of this, because Second Lieutenant Captain Friend Soon-To-Be-Companion-Again (Bless the Again, Bless the Again, _Again_ ) William Clark is stood there, standing still as they met, partitioned slightly away, the palm of his hand warming Lewis’ shoulder through a thick woolen coat.

“Saying that we are finally to begin, I imagine!” Clark slaps at his arm cheerfully and looks away, surveying the woman still offering presumptuous looks in Lewis’ direction. “Let us make our way off the landing, shall we? Much to discuss and here there’s not much—“

“Privacy?” Lewis says just as Clark says, “space.”

 _No matter_.

“Yes,” Lewis rushes, “indeed, yes. Space. I must remove a few articles from the boat—” _perhaps it’s clothing, or papers, or a dog or a gun or something,_ he’ll manage, he’ll think of it, “—and then I shall join you for a full remit of our plans for departure.”

Clark drops his hand from Lewis’ shoulder.

Bursting through the closed door of his senses, the crowd appears again round them, loud and animal, and Lewis catches sight of the woman with the blue ribbons. She looks away: aiming to be bashful, genuinely coy. _Pretty enough_ , he supposes. He turns his gaze back to Clark. _What color is her dress? Haven’t a clue._

“Surely you have a moment for a celebratory—“ Clark’s face clouds temporarily before brightening. A reflex. “You and the men must be ravenous after this morning’s exertions, perhaps we first have dinner and discussion following the fact.” 

 _He’d meant to say drink_ , Lewis thinks. _Clark remembers_.

“My respect, friend, but I’d rather go for a dram of something,” he admits, then remembering he is no longer an ensign under Clark’s command but rather the leader of this damned operation, he adds, “although I do recommend we commence our conference regarding the expedition as presently as time allows.”

“Of course.” Clark gestures to their men, most of whom are angling for affection throughout the motley crowd, and somehow he manages to sweep their attention toward himself and away from the masses. Looking younger than his 33 years, he jumps like a sprite up onto a nearby crate. “To the enlisted men of the expedition!” He shouts. “We, your honorable Captains, have engaged your services forthwith and rightly request the immediate commencement of a private council. To the citizens of Louisville! We thank you for your generous welcome today and ask that you take leave of our company at this time, only to rejoin us for our departure in the nearest future.”

Like as with a magician’s touch, the crowd disperses. Clark, pleased, removes himself from the crate.

 _I have only just arrived and already he has proven himself a Captain,_ Lewis shoves away the twinge of jealousy, _look at Clark’s ease, his knowing what to say, to do—compared to yourself._

His thoughts are interrupted, not by the hero Clark, who has already turned to walk up to the city with the men, but instead by the woman with blue ribbons in her hair.

“Sir, dear captain,” she flutters her eyelashes, “pray you pardon my forwardness, I do apologize for greeting you without an introduction,” and twists ably at her waist, as he spots her wrists milky white at the edges of blue-bowed gloves, “only that I was here to witness your boat’s landing earlier without my father and could not imagine leaving without making your acquaintance.” Her voice rises, a practiced effort designed to attract flattery.

“Greetings, I must also apologize,” Lewis barely looks her in the eye, “if it is only that I am already otherwise engaged.”

He does not ask her name. He does not kiss her hand. He does not succumb.

Her eyes widen. The devastation of realizing another day without the promise of a beau breaks the dam in her careful features. She _is_ pretty, but that is all. With the crowd nearly gone, save for a few lingerers gawking at the keelboat, Lewis feels strangely trapped. The private thrill from moments before is effectively diminished, and he can no longer see the back of Clark’s head amongst the men heading to the inn at the heart of the city.

It would be disastrously easy…but.

“I regret to inform you—yes, I’m—you must excuse me, miss. I mean not in the literal sense, but—” _but why am I explaining myself, no less why am I still here, with you, instead of there, with them_ “—as you see I am engaged in serious matters at the moment. Good day.” Pivoting on his heel, he marches away, hauls himself up the landing’s edge to the kiss of Louisville, and leaves a wobbling, painted pair of perfect lips in his wake.

Later he discovers that she had been mistaking him for Clark.

A shame, surely, for all parties involved.

 

*

 

After they eat their fill of roasted venison and pumpkin with fresh cream, the hired men begin the retreat to their tents for the moonless evening. The innkeeper at the St. George offers them a few spare rooms which Lewis promptly refuses; this is a strict military mission, after all, not a summer leisure cruise down the balmy Ohio. No inn-sleeping allowed. He gives a Private orders to stay awake on the keelboat to guard the expensive equipment sheltered there, offers his dog a pat or two, and climbs up the small embankment to where Clark is waiting silhouetted by the lone torch burning at the shoreline. The white collar at Clark’s neck frames the outline of his jaw in the near darkness, which is soon broken into golden shades as Lewis joins him and dips the wick of his candle into the flame.

“Are you feeling well after the day’s efforts, Lewis? Not over-fatigued?” Clark motions with a nip into his pocket. A small metal flask appears in his hand and a willow tree flashes in Lewis’ memory.

“Hardly. I hunted barefoot in the winter as a child. Besides, I must finish telling you of the APS and the men with whom I was tutored.”

He watches as Clark loosens the cap on the mouth of the flask and offers it. Without hesitating Lewis brings it to his lips. The whisky is hot-sharp when it hits the back of his throat. Clark takes a pull after him.

“APS?” Clark asks after swallowing. Lewis imagines he doesn’t ask about the hunting because he knows it’s true. The cap twists beneath his fingers.

“American Philosophical Society. I was taught specialisms in medicine, botany, taxonomy, zoology…”

“Astronomy.”

“Indeed.”

“Ah.”

Through more courageous and capable than nearly anyone he’s ever met (save himself, if he is to commit the first deadly sin), Lewis knows that Clark is not a well-educated man in the scholarly sense. Clark is a frontiersman: clear thinking, practical, steady of temperament, inventive. Eternally self-conscious, Lewis tries not to elaborate on his experience _sui generis_ but ends up discussing the finer points of avian nomenclature for the better part of half an hour. Clark humors him, then confers about the two-pole chain he has designed for the expedition. They walk together along the riverbank. Evening birds — swallows, Lewis notes —  glide low over the water before darting back up to their nests; crickets and toads start up as the men meander through tall grasses barely rooted in sand. 

Seven years distance between them simply evaporates.

“And how did you find Philadelphia after living in Washington City?” Clark prods after some silence.

“Well enough, I suppose.” Lewis kicks at a rotten log. “It was a significant change from living with the President.”

“More stimulating?”

“If you consider political dinners and dances stimulating." 

“I quite like a dance,” Clark laughs.

“I don’t,” Lewis says, “though I admit my opinion has been tempered by circumstance. I have been exceedingly eager to make my way here. To begin the expedition, as it were.” 

Clark stops and stoops to examine a peculiar marking in the sand and says without looking at Lewis, “And how did you find me?”

“…Pardon?”

“It’s been several years, hasn’t it, Lewis.” Clark straightens. “Do I appear older, wiser,” he smiles, “more learned?” At full height he’s just under six feet. Broad shoulders. Straight teeth, save a crooked canine. “And you, a man still in his twenties!”

“Barely twenties.” Lewis is taller by two inches now.

“Leader of a righteous adventure! Hand-chosen by the President! And myself, hand-chosen thanks to you.”

 _Hand-chosen_ by _me_ , Lewis thinks. “We ought to discuss the need for an interpreter once we reach Massac.”

By the end of their sojourn along the river, Lewis forgets they have been walking. He wishes he had taken another candle, the one in his hand now almost burnt away. 

 

*

 

The keelboat has twenty oars. It measures fifty-five feet in length and eight feet wide. The boat has a thirty-two foot mast with a thirty-one foot hold. The stern hosts a cabin topped with a quarterdeck and awning, with a ten-foot deck at the bow. Some twelve tons of supplies fit on-board. All this data and Lewis can only consider one absent piece at the moment:

“Clark, where do you intend to sleep the night?”

“In the boat, same as you I’d think.” The thud of Clark’s boot hits the bottom of the deck with a small reverberation. They keep their voices low so as to not wake the men. The Private on duty has been sent away to find the next Private taking his place. Seaman, pleased to see his master safely returned, flops down on the deck at the bow and is snoring in moments.

“Only I wasn’t certain you weren’t staying with your brother at Trough Spring…forget me, no mind. I regularly sleep in the cabin,” Lewis pauses, climbs the few steps to the after deck to show Clark the small chamber. “I had McNeal prepare a bunk today in readiness for you to join us. In case you’d preferred to sleep in the boat.” He feels relatively calm as he swings open the door and gestures for Clark to follow him.

Three windows with interior wooden shutters perforate each of the parallel walls. Humble accoutrements: a bookshelf containing the traveling library on the shortest wall, a table with a portable writing desk and inkwell; cases of Lewis’ precious scientific instruments; a bench; and two cot-beds. Lewis had designed the cabin himself to precise specifications. Given the constraints of the boat’s dimensions, he’d managed to maximize the storage capacity as well as the living arrangements. Goodness knows they’d be cramped. It feels cramped already, what with Clark looming in the doorway.

Clark looks the room over. “I am co-captain of this enterprise, in nothing but name if not fair rank, am I not?” He takes barely a step and plops down on the bunk-bed which is obviously not Lewis’. “And the captains sleep in the boat.”

That first night with Clark across from him, Lewis sleeps as serene as a moss-covered stone.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Most of the context in this chapter is documented [on this website](http://www.lewisandclarkinkentucky.org/places/ohio_river_journey.shtml), which I’ve linked to previously and will link to again, so if you’re really fascinated with this portion of the journey you might as well leave the tab open... There is a lot we don’t know about this period, especially since Lewis did not write in his journal from 19 September through 10 November, and we don’t know any specifics of how they actually met up in Louisville.
> 
> 2) I don’t know if they ever ate roasted venison and pumpkin with fresh cream, or if that’s even a thing, but that sounds a helluva lot better than a lot of stuff that they’re going to be eating down the road, if you know what I mean (and that both is and isn’t a euphemism). 
> 
> 3) Lewis supposedly reportedly actually really truly did hunt in the middle of the night, in the winter, barefoot, as a young child. To my mind this is either a completely mythical fabrication or he was the tiniest badass that ever lived. 
> 
> 4) Wanna see what experts think the keelboat looked like, based on Clark’s drawings and descriptions? [Check this website out.](http://www.lewis-clark.org/article/496) You can also view a model of the captain’s cabin, complete with those shutters that conveniently slide shut from the inside. Just sayin’.


End file.
